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Cinnamon has many uses for health and cooking. Most importantly, however, it’s delicious. If you want to take your cinnamon bakes to the next level, then you need to learn how to make and use cinnamon chips.
What are cinnamon chips
If you love cinnamon, you’ve probably had cinnamon chips many times, whether you realise it or not. They’re those pockets of cinnamon goodness that separate the best cinnamon swirls from the subpar. They look a bit like chocolate chips and you use them in more or less the same way – by simply stirring a handful into your baking batter.
How to make them
Ingredients
For approximately 2 cups of cinnamon chips, you will need:
- ⅔ cup sugar
- 3 tbsp ground cinnamon
- 2 tbsp vegetable shortening
- 2 tbsp light corn syrup
- ¼ tsp vanilla extract
Method
- Preheat oven to 200°F.
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Grease the parchment paper.
- In a medium-sized bowl, combine all the ingredients. Mix with a fork until crumbly and all crumbs are of more or less the same size.
- Spread the mixture over the parchment paper on your baking sheet. Use your hands to flatten and shape it into square approximately ¼ inch thick.
- Place the baking sheet in the oven and bake for about 30 minutes until the cinnamon mixture has melted and started to bubble.
- Remove the baking sheet from the oven and allow the cinnamon mixture to cool completely.
- Once the baked cinnamon mixture has solidified into a thin slab, cut it into small pieces (roughly the size of chocolate chips).
Storage
Store your cinnamon chips in the refrigerator inside an airtight container. They should last for about a month, but regular bakers with a sweet tooth will probably use these up quite quickly.
You can also freeze your cinnamon chips. To stop them sticking together, spread them out over a baking sheet before placing them in the freezer. Once they’ve frozen, take them out, transfer them into a freezer bag, and return them to the freezer.
How to use them
Cinnamon chips make a delicious addition to all sorts of sweet treats. We’d recommend throwing a few into the pre-baked batter or dough of:
- Muffins
- Pancakes
- Snickerdoodles and other cookies
- Cinnamon swirls and other sweet rolls and sweet breads
Looking for more specific suggestions? Then try one of these great recipes:
Cinnamon Chip Snickerdoodles
Snickerdoodles are a perennial kids’ favorite and are as delicious as they are easy to make. The simple addition of cinnamon chips, however, truly elevates them from a humble after-school snack to a talk-of-the-town treat. Find out how to make the best cinnamon chip snickerdoodles at Let’s Dish.
Cinnamon Scones with Cinnamon Chips
Start your day off right with cinnamon scones. They’re the perfect coffee accompaniment for breakfasts, brunches, and even mid-afternoon snacks (if you’re so inclined). And Laura at Joy Food Sunshine has a cinnamon scones recipe that blows the well-known bakes at nationwide coffee chains out of the water. They’ll last for a few days’ worth of breakfasts (so long as your family doesn’t get too greedy) but, truly, the real joy in these is experiencing them fresh from the oven. Absolute heaven.
Oatmeal Cookies with Cinnamon Chips
Did you know that cinnamon is a good source of fibre, manganese, vitamin K, calcium, iron, and is thought to aid digestion and lower blood sugar? All that is simply to say that adding cinnamon to everyone’s go-to “healthy” (or at least, more nutritious) cookie could be a great way to look after your family’s health without becoming a total tyrant over the cookie jar.
We are, of course, talking about oatmeal cookies. They may not be everyone’s favourite, but you can count on your homemade cinnamon chips to change that. The one downside to this oatmeal cookies with cinnamon chips recipe from Bless This Mess is that your oatmeal cookies might start flying out the jar faster than you can possibly keep it stocked. You have been warned.
